Plantations and Commodities Minister Johari Abdul Ghani also pledged to halt deforestation in Malaysia, saying 54% of the country was covered by forest and the level would not fall below 50%.
In May, the minister unveiled a plan to send orangutans abroad as commercial gifts, in an effort to ease concerns about the impact on the animals’ habitat from palm oil production, which tends to involve clearing forest land.
The plan has sparked objections from conservation groups who fear for the welfare of the critically endangered orangutans.
“Animals cannot leave their natural habitats. We have to keep them here. And then we will meet with countries or buyers of our palm oil if they want to work together to ensure that these forests can be cared for and preserved forever,” Johari told a news conference in Sabah, North Borneo.
Conservation group WWF says the population of the orangutan, whose name means “man of the forest” in Malay, is fewer than 105,000 on the island of Borneo.
The “orangutan diplomacy” plan was first made public in May, after the European Union passed an import ban on commodities linked to deforestation last year.
Malaysia, the world’s second-largest producer of palm oil, which is used in everything from lipstick to pizza, called the law discriminatory.
Johari said funds raised by companies adopting orangutans will be distributed to non-governmental organisations and the Sabah government to monitor forest areas where the primates live and try to monitor the safety and condition of the animals.
He did not give details on how much the adoption would cost.
Marc Ancrenaz, scientific director of the non-governmental organization Hutan, said he hoped the plan could fund habitat conservation work, such as building corridors between fragmented forests that are too small to support viable wildlife populations.
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